There was this lake, and it was right outside of town. We used to go fishing and swimming and canoein' in it. And, uh, see, one November, this big flock of ducks came in.. and landed on that lake. And then the temperature dropped so fast that the lake just froze right there. And they... er... the ducks... they... flew off, you see, and they took that lake right with them. Now they say that lake is somewhere over in Georgia. Can you imagine that?

When I was doing my on-the-job-training stint as a firefighter, we were called out to rescue a beaver that appeared to be stuck on a pond.

All the rescue agencies responded. A veterinarian was brought in...and in all their infinite wisdom, they determined that the beaver had lumbered out onto the ice, took a nap and became frozen to the ice once the sun set...Personally, I called it Darwinism At Work. Damn beaver was too stupid to live as far as I concerned.

Of course, guess who gets tasked with "rescuing" said beaver? Why yes...yours truly.

So, off I go to don a cold water rescue suit and then proceed to slither and slide across the ice to a now angry-ish beaver...and pour warm water over it's feet in order to free it from the ice.

It worked. I lived. The beaver lived (probably got hit by a car the next day though or drowned or got stuck in a trap)...and the media circus that had assembled got their "good news" story of the day out of it.